The global app market continued to expand at an impressive rate of 11 per cent for the first three months of 2013. Market analyst firm Canalys, in a new study released this week, said the top 4 app stores logged 13.4 billion downloads for the period.

The combined revenues of the Apple App Store, Google Play, Windows Phone Store and BlackBerry World reached $2.2 billion for Q1 2013, with Apple enjoying a 74 per cent market share.

However, volume-wise, it was Google Play that had the largest number of downloads, accounting for 51 per cent. However, Canalys said the two other app vendors could not be ignored.

"Each of these four stores represents a different market proposition for developers, and remains the primary outlet to reach users on the platforms they said," CNET quoted Canalys senior analyst Tim Shepherd.

But it appears that it is the app stores that are benefiting from the income from the downloads. A previous Canalys report said that in November 2012, half of all the mobile app revenues earned were shared only among 25 developers, including Rovio, Zynga, Electronic Arts and Disney.

The 25 accounted for $60 million of the app revenue for paid downloads and in-app purchases, while all the other developers had to share the other $60 million.

On Monday, AppleInsider reported that Google removed almost 10 per cent of apps to reduce the number of apps considered as spammy. While some of the apps removed were pulled out on the publishers' initiative, Google apparently had a say in the cut in number of apps, bringing to 60,000 the number of apps that the tech firm had expunged.

That would be equivalent to between 7.5 and 10 per cent of the apps in Google's Android store.

The apps it had deleted were those that spread malware, violated copyrights or included graphic sexual content. The bulk of those removed were ringtones and MP3 apps as Google moderates its Play Store to improve quality of offerings.

Meanwhile, Apple removed from its store AppGratis for alleged violation of Apple's developer guidelines such as display of other apps other than the developer's own apps and the use of Push Notification to send advertising, promotions or direct marketing of any kind.

It could be the start of Apple purging its app store further for similar apps with the same purpose as AppGratis, All Things Digital reported.

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